This message was sent to the English Shepherd Club’s Yahoo Group by Rebecca Wingler on June 23, 2009. The message is published here with Ms. Wingler’s permisson.
There are still some Blankenship line bred dogs around, but they are getting fewer. The last I heard (couple of years back), Pauline Blankenship was in a nursing care facility. Her husband John had died a number of years ago. There are a few Blankenship line bred dogs located in NC. Jeanette Williams has recently retired from breeding (I believe) and was raising them. Janice Sallee has a few dogs that go back to the Blankenship lines as well.
The Blankenships were part of the group that “broke away” from the UKC back in the late 40’s, early 50’s and went with Tom Stodghill’s group. Stodghill was trying to establish B&T’s as the “only” color to be had in the ES breed. Due to politics within Stodghill’s registry & club, there became another splinter group that was supported by the Blankenships & headed by Ed Emanuel. This is when the IESR registry & the ESC came into being. Whereas Stodghill’s registry (what became the ARF) & the ESC of America were intertwined, the ESC was a stand alone club, but started up by Emanuel. Anyway, in my mind there were pretty much 2 original b&t groups of ES. Stodghill made his line pretty famous with his advertising and his far reaching clockwise breeding plan. The Blankenships & a good number of breeders within the TN area also bred B&T’s that were not originally related to Stodghill’s line.
Rebecca Wingler
